Follow Up: Palm Planters

In response to Wednesday’s post on our new palm trees, we received a comment from Terry, who asked why we keep many of the palms in wood crates. I checked with John Bowsher, director of special installations, who told me that the reason some of the palms are in boxes is because there are structures beneath—a basement, a loading dock, and in one case, a large storm drain—that don’t allow proper soil depth for the palms to grow. The crates themselves are standard issue, but I learned from John that Robert Irwin actually appreciates their shape so much that he’s having Cor-ten steel versions fabricated for the area around the Resnick Pavilion, which will open next year. Regular readers might recall that one of our conservators, John Hirx, happened to write at length about the material just a couple of weeks ago, as it’s the same material Richard Serra uses in his sculptures. Twenty palms are slated to reside in the new crates. A model should arrive in the next few weeks and I’ll share a picture of it with you if I can.